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Coffin & Co.
A Novel. A novel that has the rhythm, the ambience, the punch of the American serie noire.
- GenresFiction
195 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 1, 1987
1 person is currently reading
26 people want to read
About the author
Simon Njami
48 books6 followersSimon Njami is a writer and an independent curator, lecturer, art critic and essayist.
He has published his first novel "Cercueil et Cie" in 1985, followed by "Les Enfants de la Cité" in 1987, "Les Clandestins" and "African Gigolo" in 1989, notably. He wrote two biographies, about James Baldwin and Léopold Sédar Senghor, several short texts, scripts for cinema and documentary films.
Njami is the co-founder of Revue Noire, a journal of contemporary African and extra-occidental art, and he was Visiting Professor at UCSD (University of San Diego California).
After conceiving the Ethnicolor Festival in Paris in 1987, he curated many international exhibitions being among the first ones to think and show African contemporary artists work on international stages. He has served as Artistic Director of Bamako Encounters, the African Photography Biennale, from 2001 to 2007. Njami is the curator of "Africa Remix", showed in Düsseldorf (Museum Kunst Palast), London (Hayward Gallery), Paris (Centre Pompidou), Tokyo (Mori Museum), Stockholm (Moderna Museet) and Johannesburg (Johannesburg Art Gallery), from 2004 to 2007. He co-curated the first African Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. He curated the first African Art Fair, held in Johannesburg in 2008, and was the Artistic Director of Luanda Triennale (2010), Picha (Lumumbashi Biennale – 2010), SUD (Douala Triennale – 2010), among others exhibitions and international art events.
The exhibition "The Divine Comedy – Heaven, Hell, Purgatory by Contemporary African Artists" was shown at MMK (Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main) from 21 March to 27 July 2014, The SCAD Museum of Art from October 16 to January 25 and at Smithsonian Institution/ African Art Museum, Washington, from April 8th to November 1st, 2015.
Simon Njami is the Artistic Director of the Edition 12 of Dak'art, the Dakar Biennale, in Senegal from May, 3 to June, 2, 2016.
Invited to be part of numerous art and photography juries, such as the World Press Photo Contest, Njami is the Art Adviser of the Sindika Dokolo Foundation (Luanda) and the Artistic Director of the Donwahi Foundation (Abidjan) and member of the scientific boards of numerous museums.
He is currently directing "AtWork", an itinerant and digital project with Lettera27 Foundation, in partnership with Moleskine, as well as the Pan African Master Classes in Photography, project that he conceived with the Goethe Institut, and setting up the collection of contemporary art for the future Memorial Acte Museum in Guadeloupe.
He has published his first novel "Cercueil et Cie" in 1985, followed by "Les Enfants de la Cité" in 1987, "Les Clandestins" and "African Gigolo" in 1989, notably. He wrote two biographies, about James Baldwin and Léopold Sédar Senghor, several short texts, scripts for cinema and documentary films.
Njami is the co-founder of Revue Noire, a journal of contemporary African and extra-occidental art, and he was Visiting Professor at UCSD (University of San Diego California).
After conceiving the Ethnicolor Festival in Paris in 1987, he curated many international exhibitions being among the first ones to think and show African contemporary artists work on international stages. He has served as Artistic Director of Bamako Encounters, the African Photography Biennale, from 2001 to 2007. Njami is the curator of "Africa Remix", showed in Düsseldorf (Museum Kunst Palast), London (Hayward Gallery), Paris (Centre Pompidou), Tokyo (Mori Museum), Stockholm (Moderna Museet) and Johannesburg (Johannesburg Art Gallery), from 2004 to 2007. He co-curated the first African Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. He curated the first African Art Fair, held in Johannesburg in 2008, and was the Artistic Director of Luanda Triennale (2010), Picha (Lumumbashi Biennale – 2010), SUD (Douala Triennale – 2010), among others exhibitions and international art events.
The exhibition "The Divine Comedy – Heaven, Hell, Purgatory by Contemporary African Artists" was shown at MMK (Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main) from 21 March to 27 July 2014, The SCAD Museum of Art from October 16 to January 25 and at Smithsonian Institution/ African Art Museum, Washington, from April 8th to November 1st, 2015.
Simon Njami is the Artistic Director of the Edition 12 of Dak'art, the Dakar Biennale, in Senegal from May, 3 to June, 2, 2016.
Invited to be part of numerous art and photography juries, such as the World Press Photo Contest, Njami is the Art Adviser of the Sindika Dokolo Foundation (Luanda) and the Artistic Director of the Donwahi Foundation (Abidjan) and member of the scientific boards of numerous museums.
He is currently directing "AtWork", an itinerant and digital project with Lettera27 Foundation, in partnership with Moleskine, as well as the Pan African Master Classes in Photography, project that he conceived with the Goethe Institut, and setting up the collection of contemporary art for the future Memorial Acte Museum in Guadeloupe.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 7, 2023
We are going to start this review talking about Chester Himes, an African-American writer, most well-known in crime fiction circles, for his nine-novel series about two Harlem police detectives Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones. Himes moved to Paris in the mid-1950’s. The series focused on a Harlem that was its own little world with its own lingo. There were actually eight books in the series during Himes’ lifetime and one published posthumously (1) For Love of Imabelle (aka A Rage in Harlem) (1957); (2) The Real Cool Killers (1958); (3) The Crazy Kill (1959); (4) The Big Gold Dream (1959); (5) All Shot Up (1960); (6) Cotton Comes to Harlem (1964); (7) The Heat’s On (1966); (8) Blind Man With a Pistol (1969); and (9) (posthumously) Plan B (1993). After his death in Spain in 1984, a rumor persisted that Himes left a final, unfinished Harlem story, in which he literally destroyed both his Harlem backdrop and his heroes in a violent racial cataclysm.
Now let’s circle back around to Njami Simon’s 1985 novel, Coffin & Co. It is a tribute to Himes and, in particular, his heroes Coffin and Gravedigger. This Simon novel pursues the persistent rumor that Himes had a last unfinished novel which brought an end to Coffin and Gravedigger. You open up this novel and get introduced to retired Harlem police detectives W. Dubois Jones and Ed Smith, who often go by the nicknames Coffin & Gravedigger and act like them. Then, we get the twist which is that they have always had a deal with Himes that they would tell him stories about their exploits and he would make them into these novels. They are retired, but still concerned about their reputations.
Hearing that Himes, who has long since moved to Paris, has a final novel coming out in which they meet their ends, they determine to meet up with him before it can be translated to English and convince him to continue writing their characters. We get them in Paris, two fish out of water, trying to find Himes through his publisher and ultimately following down the leads to the Spanish coast where they meet Himes, the great author, and his wife.
Meanwhile, back in Paris, we are following a parallel story with a French reporter of Cameroonian descent, who is following down different leads and also offering the reader a glimpse of the experience that African immigrants had in Paris much as Himes had offered America a glimpse of the African-American experience in Harlem. Simon, by the way, is a French writer of African descent.
Coffin & Gravediffer make their way back to Paris where their path intersects with that of the reporter, Amos Yebga. This is a crime story involving a modeling agency, a drug dealer, nightclubs, and lots of action, though it can be a little confusing at times.
Thus, Coffin & Co. is a remarkable tribute novel which offers another adventure with two familiar characters and Simon’s two characters are clearly the Coffin and Gravedigger we are familiar with from Himes’ novels. However, this novel does not pretend that it is simply another extension to the series written posthumously, but cleverly encapsulates Himes’ story and the story of his lost final novel, which in 1985 had not yet surfaced.
Now let’s circle back around to Njami Simon’s 1985 novel, Coffin & Co. It is a tribute to Himes and, in particular, his heroes Coffin and Gravedigger. This Simon novel pursues the persistent rumor that Himes had a last unfinished novel which brought an end to Coffin and Gravedigger. You open up this novel and get introduced to retired Harlem police detectives W. Dubois Jones and Ed Smith, who often go by the nicknames Coffin & Gravedigger and act like them. Then, we get the twist which is that they have always had a deal with Himes that they would tell him stories about their exploits and he would make them into these novels. They are retired, but still concerned about their reputations.
Hearing that Himes, who has long since moved to Paris, has a final novel coming out in which they meet their ends, they determine to meet up with him before it can be translated to English and convince him to continue writing their characters. We get them in Paris, two fish out of water, trying to find Himes through his publisher and ultimately following down the leads to the Spanish coast where they meet Himes, the great author, and his wife.
Meanwhile, back in Paris, we are following a parallel story with a French reporter of Cameroonian descent, who is following down different leads and also offering the reader a glimpse of the experience that African immigrants had in Paris much as Himes had offered America a glimpse of the African-American experience in Harlem. Simon, by the way, is a French writer of African descent.
Coffin & Gravediffer make their way back to Paris where their path intersects with that of the reporter, Amos Yebga. This is a crime story involving a modeling agency, a drug dealer, nightclubs, and lots of action, though it can be a little confusing at times.
Thus, Coffin & Co. is a remarkable tribute novel which offers another adventure with two familiar characters and Simon’s two characters are clearly the Coffin and Gravedigger we are familiar with from Himes’ novels. However, this novel does not pretend that it is simply another extension to the series written posthumously, but cleverly encapsulates Himes’ story and the story of his lost final novel, which in 1985 had not yet surfaced.
June 16, 2010
A really clever, successful homage to Himes, with a little bit of Simenon thrown in - a novel about two retired Harlem detectives who travel to Paris to see the great Himes, and get mixed up in a mystery within the Parisian African community along the way. Interesting stuff. I would read more mysteries by this author, if I could find any.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews